Friday, April 04, 2008 - Posts
-
John Edwards has finally given up on the presidency. Even as he was standing behind a podium in New Orleans announcing his withdrawal in late January, we didn’t really believe he was done. Remember, this is the same guy who mounted a failed campaign to be the Democratic nominee in 2004, went along for a failed vice presidential ride, and got back on the saddle for a failed campaign in 2008. Moreover, after he fell on his face in New Hampshire this year, he kept on begging for the country’s vote like a spurned teenage lover. When a politician that determined to become president claims he’s dropping out of the race, it’s hard to take his words at face value.
But now we’re sure that he’s ready to slink away from the bustle and grind of electoral politics. After months of not endorsing either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, Edwards said yesterday that he wouldn’t accept a vice presidential slot on either candidate’s ticket. After a rocky road with John Kerry in 2004, Edwards seems to have finally acknowledged what the American people have been trying to tell him all along: They don’t want him to be president.
This is the culmination of a rough few months for Edwards. He abstained from leveraging his superdelegate star power for either candidate; his Iowa delegates deserted him once he dropped out of the race; and neither of the candidates has paid much lip-service to his poverty agenda. Now he’s putting the kibosh on his last chance to get back in the game—before anyone even asked him to play. If he doesn’t reinject himself into the conversation now he’ll be as dated as an episode of Temptation Island.
While he rattled off moribund stump speeches between New Hampshire and his withdrawal, we sat Edwards down on the Freud sofa and psychoanalyzed his candidacy. At the time, there were five stages to his grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. His recent no-VP comments show that he’s finally reached the acceptance stage. He knows that the only way he’ll be in the Oval Office is as an invited guest.
But just because he’s done with the campaign trail doesn’t mean Edwards is done with politics. Hillary Clinton announced that she wants a Cabinet-level “poverty czar” in her administration—a position probably created with Edwards’ endorsement in mind. If Hillary doesn’t sweet-talk her way into the White House, Edwards can always emulate a certain former vice president and become a Poverty Gore rather than a poverty czar. What Al did for the environment John can do for the poor. Hell, if Gore’s current status is any indication, more people will want Edwards to be president when he isn’t trying to become one.
-
There could have been worse moments for revelations to emerge that Mark Penn met with one client, the Colombian embassy, to discuss a free-trade agreement opposed by another client, Hillary Clinton. It could have happened on a slow news day, as opposed to the 40th anniversary of MLK’s assassination. Or a day when Clinton wasn’t releasing seven years of tax returns.
But because it didn't get much attention today, it remains to be seen how much impact this unwisest of unwise decisions—for Penn has made others—will have on the campaign. Obama spokesman Bill Burton reminded reporters of Clinton’s response to Austan Goolsbee’s meeting with Canadian officials: “I would ask you to look at this story and substitute my name for Sen. Obama’s name and see what you would do with this story. … Just ask yourself [what you would do] if some of my advisers had been having private meetings with foreign governments.”
Keep in mind that the situations are barely analogous. Goolsbee met with Canadian officials on behalf of the Obama campaign and allegedly said things that made Obama sound hypocritical. Penn, on the other hand, was representing his PR firm, Burston-Marsteller (although, oddly, a spokesman for Colombia’s president wasn’t sure). And while the meeting certainly makes Mark Penn sound hypocritical, it’s hard to extend the blame to Clinton herself.
Still, Penn is no doubt on the receiving end of a very large paddle right now. It’s not good enough for Penn to say, "I may be a hypocrite, but my client is not." For someone who sells a candidacy based largely on judgment, Penn displayed very little of it. As Josh Marshall put it, “[W]hen [Clinton’s] political future is on the line in a state like Pennsylvania, wracked by the loss of industrial jobs for decades, you think he could have waited a few more weeks before prancing off to help get a new free trade pact passed?” This campaign has seen unprecedented conflation of surrogate and candidate (Power, Ferraro, Shaheen)—it’s optimistic to think this crap won’t trickle up.
Penn has since apologized, but damned if Obama’s allies aren’t going to milk this like a Lancaster udder.
-
Jason Horowitz has a great write-up of a Democratic fundraiser last night, featuring angry Clinton supporters and a testy Howard Dean. When donors raised the issue of seating Florida and Michigan delegations,
Dean said that in his view, the question could be settled only after the primaries had finished in June, and after the superdelegates had made their decision.
At that point Clinton campaign finance chair Hassan Nemazee spoke up. He said Dean's response sounded to him as if the DNC chairman were "essentially trying to kick the can down the road" and that the chairman was not exhibiting the type of leadership one would expect. Nemazee said that since the campaigns obviously could not reach a solution on their own before June, Dean's argument amounted to passing the buck.
Dean then responded, heatedly, that in his experience, those who sought the intervention of party leadership were motivated by their own particular agendas. And that was not the sort of leadership he intended to provide.
This illustrates the problem we talked about the other day: Dean thinks he can broker a “compromise” on the issue, without recognizing that the two campaigns have no common ground whatsoever. Either the states’ delegates get apportioned in a way that influences the election, or they don’t. So no matter what, if he forces a decision, it’s going to look like he’s taking sides.
You can see why he wants to stonewall. By waiting until after the primaries, Dean increases the chances that Florida/Michigan will be a nonissue. If one of the candidates may have dropped out by then, he or she will gladly seat the delegates.
You can also see how much this helps Obama. Not only does Clinton need their delegates, but Florida and Michigan are key to her case to superdelegates that she should win the nomination. Without official recognition that the two contests counted, she’ll have trouble arguing that her victories there mattered—not to mention lumping their votes into the popular vote tally. (It’s a tough case, anyway, seeing as Obama wasn’t on the Michigan ballot.)
So in that sense, “kicking the can down the road” isn’t a perfectly neutral stance—it ends up slightly favoring Obama.
-
There’s plenty of juiciness in the latest New York Times/CBS poll. Obama’s national lead is shrinking and his favorability rating is dropping, yet more Americans identify with his values than those of his opponents.
But there’s another interesting tidbit I’d point out. When asked who they expect to win the Democratic nomination, regardless of whom they support, 67 percent of respondents named Obama, compared to Clinton’s 19 percent. (The split is almost exactly the same among Democratic primary voters and all voters.) Only 13 percent said they don’t know—a pretty low number, given that none of us truly know.
Some of this you could chalk up to media coverage (ahem). But it also suggests voters know a lot more about the obstacles facing Clinton than you’d expect. When her campaign points out that the American people are split, they’re right. Obama leads by less than 1 percent of the total number of delegates popular vote.* And that’s a hard argument to refute without getting into the mathematical weeds, which makes it easy for her campaign to dismiss claims that Clinton can’t catch up.
It’s surprising, therefore, that most voters don’t see it as "tied." Maybe we’re getting through after all.
More on this poll at Election Scorecard.
*Fraysters rightly point out that Obama leads by more than 1 percent of the delegates. Turns out the Clinton memo was talking about overall votes. Read it here.
Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum
What did you think of this article?